Scott MacLeod
5:45 PM (2 hours ago)
to nontheist-friends
Anita, JohnM, NtFs, All,
Re "Translating Religion Into Nontheistic Beliefs" ...
here's another public broadcasting perspective on religion from Mark Shields on the PBS News Hour (search on "Religion in the text here) -
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shields-and-brooks-on-trump-and-race-democrats-2020-values -
where Mark Shields says in a conversation format, from one side of the political commentator aisle: "I mean, there is no abolitionist movement in this country without religion. There is no anti-war movement without religion in its ranks. There is no civil rights movement.
And the Democrats can claim in all three of those."
For Quakers - and many Nontheist Friends too I affirm - religion significantly affirms abolitionism, anti-war (eg Quaker Peace Testimony), and civil rights, as religion, and religion is also an important stream in America (and most of the other ~200 countries in the world, I'd suggest too), and for some NtFs in all of the above senses too too ... Anita, I think religion inform "what value religion has for us nontheists" Friends, and atheist Quakers too, in that NtFs continuing to come into Friendly conversation with Quakerism. (The NPR broadcast transcript mentions too Scott Atran's thinking, an evolutionary biologist and atheist who seeks to understand religion from these perspectives, and who has long been in the references of both the Nontheist Quakers' Wikipedia entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Quakers - in English, and also in the Spanish NtQ entry - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu%C3%A1quero_no_te%C3%ADsta - as well as in the Nontheist Friends (atheist Quakers?) wiki school https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friends_(atheist_Quakers%3F) in English).
In a very different vein re "Translating Religion Into Nontheistic Beliefs" and "what value religion has for us nontheists" re this ...
"Loving bliss and practices to elicit this"
http://scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm ...
I seek to explore and share ways to elicit such loving bliss neurophysiology, touching in this letter on departing from the language of religion and spirituality, and with explicit exploration of this re nontheist Friends - "And nontheist F/friends, with the possibility of shaping friendly language that doesn't invoke the supernatural, but where loving bliss arises partly vis-à-vis an emergent language and culture, may also facilitate this." - and also explicitly in the context of Quaker thinking. While I've shared this before with NtFs on this email list, I think, and it's "out of the box" thinking too, this is where I head with "translating religion Into nontheistic beliefs" and "what value religion has for us non-theists."
As George Fox, founder of Quakerism was supposed to have said: "what canst thou say?" ... and I seek to explore this too in wiki conversation re friendly non-theistic eliciting of I suppose kinds of belief re brain chemistry here - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology) - and potentially with you l https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friends_(atheist_Quakers%3F) . What music or dance or experiences in Silent Meeting, or otherwise move you in these headings?
NtF Cheers, :)
Scott
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Saturday, August 3, 2019
Anita Bower
Sat, Aug 3, 5:25 AM (1 day ago)
to nontheist-friends
I am interested in what value religion has for us nontheists.
Along those lines, I recently listened to an interesting podcast interview with a social psychologist who thinks religions and gods were cultural evolutionary creations to help keep a large group of people together and functioning well.
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/06/720656274/where-does-religion-come-from-one-researcher-points-to-cultural-evolution
(Forgive my not erasing the long stuff after John's email. I'm new to gmail and can't figure out how to erase it.)
Anita
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nontheist-friends/CA%2B8XWuLSUEJMHEpQtvtSzA0h%2BNxOTi8Ye7g7NaiJ0uUKdMkM-w%40mail.gmail.com.
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Sunday, August 4, 2019
I want to comment on Scott's latest email. Scott writes:
"Mark Shields says in a conversation format, from one side of the political commentator aisle: "I mean, there is no abolitionist movement in this country without religion. There is no anti-war movement without religion in its ranks. There is no civil rights movement."
That religion was involved in abolition does not mean that religion is necessary for good to flourish. Religion was also involved in maintaining slavery. Religion has a purpose and does good, but I don't think it is necessary for nontheists. There are secular humanist organizations that promote the general good.
Scott also writes: "... Anita, I think religion inform "what value religion has for us nontheists" Friends, and atheist Quakers too, in that NtFs continuing to come into Friendly conversation with Quakerism."
Quakerism has a set of values that are important to me. I think those same values exist in liberal Methodism, in which I was raised. It is the values I am interested in. The organizations--be they Quaker or Methodist or Democratic Party--are problematic for me.
Anita
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Thanks, Anita, and NtFs,
Leads me to wonder how NtFs as an 'organization' could become 'increasingly better'? ... and your observations here (and in previous NtF email conversations), and your constructive critical (friendly) engagement writing-wise with NtFs, suggest for me ways to do this. Am also appreciating your implicit 'historicization' of NtFs with regards to Quakerism, Methodism and the Democratic Party re how organizations change, - with relevance for non-theism Friends, and this thread too. (Just noticed in searching on some Google Admin questions, that they consider their various platforms - such as this email list - as 'organizational units').
With regard to the second part of my email re eliciting loving bliss neurophysiology (as a non-theist Friend's exploration in writing) and re the above, am curious whether further 'writing as an expression of 'organizations'' could lead to more fulsome explorations of a metaphorical on-off switch of these loving bliss neural cascades of pleasure biological experiences (but construed here in the context of religion by leaving religion of spirituality behind - possibly as organizations too - behind. Loving bliss neurophysiology or neural cascades of pleasure to name these in two ways are 'simply divine' - may be something about the specific qualities of 'light within' in the neural firings :). (All a bit wordy, think I'm going to turn on Grateful Dead music from the 1970s - https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead - where the GD as organization as rock and roll band, quasi-nontheistic-'religion' for some, were also about change, - hippy change; am also an appreciator of classical Indian raga, as well as opera at times ... all re my "translating religion Into nontheistic beliefs" and "what value religion has for us nontheists." You?:).
JohnM: Re your "Religion has some valuable spiritual beliefs often lost when theistism is rejected. Howi do you prevent the baby from going out with the bath water?" Change the organization of religion NtF-wise ... and possibly for me in the direction of brain neurophysiology mediated by sociocultural communication processes. Change via communication, NtF-wise? :)
NtF cheers, Scott
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Missed a good sermon recently - "The sermon on Jonah from Moby Dick" -
https://youtu.be/qb-g4O2QDZg ? Was just watching yesterday the film "Moby Dick" (1956) with Gregory Peck, directed by John Huston, where Orson Welles is the minister - and in the Seaman's Bethel (which I know fairly well personally from having grown up in SE Massachusetts in summers) in New Bedford Massachusetts, which sent many a crew in the name of religion to the south Pacific on a bloody lucrative quest. The film also portrays Herman Melville's ship owners of the Pequod (which means "Destruction") who are Quakers ... newly represented in this film compared with the book "Moby Dick." (This film is worth seeing in many ways:). Film offers great insight into a very different culture, which included Quakers significantly (NB in the 1700 and 1800s) and which has changed religion-organization-wise.
The old Quaker Meeting House in New Bedford, long closed but still in decent shape, is interesting because it has male and female entrances.
Glad we're having this "[NTF-talk] Translating Religion Into Nontheistic Beliefs" conversation partly about "change" via the creation anew of non-theist Friendly discourse / culture ... beliefs as neurophysiology even :)
NtF cheers, Scott
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Actually the New Bedford Quaker Meeting may have been opened again fairly recently
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quaker+Meetings/@41.633507,-70.928128,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x3ed3f3f7ab73bc53!8m2!3d41.633507!4d-70.928128 - https://neym.org/meetings/new-bedford
I think I last visited its outside 2-3 years ago, and it was in dilapidated condition.
For your interest, here's more information the New Bedford Quaker Meeting House and Quakers in New England
http://www.whalingcity.net/picture_1906_quaker_meeting_house.html
http://www.dvvarchitects.com/newbedfordfriendsmeetinghousepage.html
https://www.nps.gov/nebe/learn/historyculture/quakers.htm
https://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/19990722/news/307229970
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Before I re-write this:
'Loving bliss and practices to elicit this'
http://scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm ...
Loving bliss and practices to elicit this
Friends,
Here are some thoughts about loving bliss and practices for this, loosely assembled.
I'm curious about loving bliss from the perspective of neurophysiology, after the at least thousands of generations that precede us, and with potentially thousands more ahead, for those who have children. I've had many experiences of this, which I don't associate with either religious or spiritual language.
I'm not sure people want to read about my experiences, but might instead enjoy reading ways in which they might 'access' loving bliss naturally, although, in brief, here are my experiences with it. Roughly from ages 1-6 were very fun years, coming into language with friends, and with my very fun mother - loving bliss was 'in the air' {i.e. in our bodyminds} ... and here too: on the island where I've grown up in summers in Massachusetts, when I was head sailing instructor there some years ago working with kids, and organizing a talent show in the evenings, and also while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail for four months in California and Oregon a year later. I've also experienced loving bliss at North Pacific Yearly Meeting (Quaker) in the early 1980s, and in the pools at Harbin Hot Springs - http://harbin.org - as well as in the milieu of Harbin, and sometimes while contra-dancing, and while listening to Mozart's arias in "The Magic Flute," {e.g. 'Queen of the Night' arias ~> neural cascades of pleasure}, and when I've loved some women in the past – a lot.
Loving bliss doesn't occur for me continually in these examples, and these examples represent a variety of qualities of it, but it is these experiences, thoughts and neurophysiology I enjoy, find fascinating and wish to explore further with friends. I've also had these experiences while caring for others. They are each a kind of 'flow' experience (see Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience").
Philosophically and neurophysiologically only, I think ecstasy (MDMA - methylene_dioxy_meth_amphetamine) is a fascinating, reference experience. The above experiences all loosely relate to what I imagine MDMA {ecstasy} experiences to offer. Such neurochemistry suggests that these processes are biological, and not supernatural or spiritual (as some might suggest), and ingesting such a compound suggests also that there is a kind of threshold across which these states emerge. While the following definition doesn't fully explain what loving bliss is for me, it does involve experiences that are deeply, gratefully harmonizing, and reciprocally appreciative and affectionate, both with a friend or friends, and alone, as well as profoundly and naturally high at the same time, and which are ongoing, biological, 'flow' experiences. {What is it for you?} So I think one can access loving bliss, and while I'm a little 'wired' for it - I think it's part of my neurophysiology - I'm interested in exploring the threshold effect idea, where we can think about, create and enter into these fugue-like states, naturally and extensively.
And while it's part of other people's neurophysiologies - - Kenneth Boulding's (Quaker economist and poet) comment, at Olney Friends' School in Barnesville, Ohio, when asked about his cheeriness: "Oh," (he chortled in his English accent – I've met him before) "it's glandular," - I think loving bliss is accentuated also by idealistic and intelligent discourse.
But I haven't had these experiences all the time, and don't have, and I'm curious about accessing this neurophysiology in an almost naturally emergent way, perhaps by doing less - wu wei {non-action in the Taoist writers' Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu's senses}, - or as if one were surfing a wave, or singing a line of music rapturously and floating on this, or as easily and freely as 'googling' information and surfing the World Wide Web, and how, when, and for as long as one wants. How can one begin to just let loving bliss happen, and then welcome it on and on? {The pacifism, simplicity, integrity, open-endedness and focus on goodness of Quaker, silent meeting, as well as the relaxation response, seems to provide possible bases. How to let loving bliss emerge with awareness, and flower profoundly and profusely as it's beginning to bubble up in one's bodymind are questions, and experiences, I'm exploring. Let's explore this together, over decades.
I'm also interested in thinking out of the box – outside familiar patterns and norms, which is something (nontheist) Friends have explored historically (with conscientious objection to war, fighting and violence, for example) - to explore how to access loving bliss fully. Click on the 'notes' here for further thoughts about this - scottmacleod.com/yoga.htm}.
How to imagine and envision the kind of loving bliss you want, and then realize this? Sometimes loving bliss just bubbles up for me, - especially in beautiful, natural areas, in the Harbin Hot Springs' pools, and in silent meeting, among many places. While a beautiful place can help cultivate bliss, omega-3 fatty acids (1000 mg flax seed oil, 3-4 times per day with food) may also be helpful. And nontheist friends, with the possibility of shaping friendly language that doesn't invoke the supernatural, but where loving bliss arises partly vis-à-vis an emergent language and culture, may also facilitate this. So, for me, both Harbin Hot Springs with its wonderful milieu, as well as the open-ended form of the unprogrammed, nontheist tradition of the Society of Friends (Quaker), offer interesting contexts in which to explore these questions, neurophysiology and language.
I'd love to explore and find ways with you to give rise to the wondrous weather of loving bliss in our bodyminds, whenever we want it, freely and with personal freedom, and in so many ways.
Let's communicate further, directly or indirectly, about loving bliss as friends. :)
Warm regards,
Scott
Scott
A basis for loving bliss (the following open the way to bliss for me, - explore innovative ways for yourself):
relaxing into the relaxation response (Benson 1972)
releasing and breathing practices (especially delicious ones)
{a healthy bodymind also seems important, - walking, yoga asana, swimming, dancing, a good diet, and flax seed omega-3 fatty acids taken with food, and a daily multivitamin?}
For bliss {each of the following can be a rich kind of flow experience, - especially when cultivating bliss; in some ways these are 'technologies' for bliss}:
listening to music (iTunes)
- arias in Mozart's "Magic Flute," especially
- "O zittre nicht" aria (on youtube.com)
- "The Queen of the Night" aria
- Yo-Yo Ma playing J.S. Bach's "Cello Suites" (here's the Prelude)
- Grateful Dead ~ Going Down the Road Feeling Bad
- Acoustic Blues channel on Pandora.com
- The Belleville A Cappella Choir, recorded by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax (on pandora.com)
dancing (especially New England contra-dance for me)
singing & improvisational, play singing
making music
playing and working with kids
eating extraordinary food
making love, intimacy, sexuality & coitus
conversing (mind-expanding & receptive, intellectual conversation)
engaging great music, poetry, literature, art, etc.
enjoying incredible nature, natural areas, wildflowers, flowers ..., - richly
traveling
opening to bliss while moving back and forth between Harbin Hot Springs' hot (113 F / 60 C) & cold (60 F / 15 C) pools
shaping a virtual world to explore practices of loving bliss?
smiling ~ beaming :))
~ What helps you elicit bliss naturally?
For love:
reciprocated, ongoing affection for another, a friend
exploring love in art, music, and ideas with a dear friend, and/or friends
nameless, loving understandings between friends who love one another
receiving and giving warmth and love with a radiant friend
Practice loving bliss:
consider using language that works for you as a kind of art or technology to bring these qualities of bliss to your bodymind in a variety of ways
> learn loving bliss through practice
{guidelines for practicing loving bliss vis-à-vis practicing a musical instrument}
{guidelines for practicing loving bliss vis-à-vis practicing a musical instrument}
> rekindle a lovingly blissful memory in your bodymind, and let this flower
> explore loving bliss {with friends} ~ dream it ~ write about it~ focus on it ~ create it :)
Knowledge-based resources
(starting approaches for exploring loving bliss)
(starting approaches for exploring loving bliss)
Benson, Herbert and Miriam Z. Klipper. 2000 [1972]. The Relaxation Response. Expanded updated edition. Harper.
http://www.amazon.com/Relaxation-Response-M-D-Herbert-Benson/dp/0380815958/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7423243-3126334?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184081854&sr=8-1
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1997. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. Basic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465024114/qid=1152742117/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5928915-8116654?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465024114/qid=1152742117/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-5928915-8116654?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1991. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Rider & Company.
http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0712657592/sr=1-1/qid=1157727810/ref=sr_1_1/104-2411940-9149542?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/dp/0712657592/sr=1-1/qid=1157727810/ref=sr_1_1/104-2411940-9149542?ie=UTF8&s=books
Foster, Rick, and Greg Hicks. 2004. How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People--Their Secrets, Their Stories. Perigree.
http://www.choosetobehappy.com/explore/index.html
http://www.choosetobehappy.com/explore/index.html
Oasis, Happy Heavenly. 2004. Bliss Conscious Communication: Transmuting Ordinary Chats Into Extraordinary Conversations. New Zealand: Books for Earthlings. ISBN 0473097664.
http://www.happyoasis.com/HappyBooks.htm
http://www.happyoasis.com/HappyBooks.htm
Print Loving Bliss and Practices for this (.doc)
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